Nintendo is officially joining the big boys’ club, as various Wii U games were confirmed to retail at $60 apiece with most retailers. That’s a 10-dollar price jump from most high-profile Wii titles.

In a sense, it’s both a disappointment and an interesting change of the guard, as Nintendo games have traditionally been less expensive than Xbox and PlayStation titles.

Interestingly, the price increase can be attributed to a number of things: the shrinking console market, a more advanced system, more competition from the mobile market, and probably the fluctuating economy.

Producing physical retail discs isn’t a cheap effort, either, especially with shipping, retail, and production taking so many pieces of the pie from Nintendo in the long run.

Digital distribution would help with that, but as New Super Mario Bros. 2 has shown, it’s not a sales magnet yet.

Regardless, Nintendo games are now “expensive” by loose retail standards. Hopefully, this isn’t a precursor to PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 games getting a 10-dollar price bump of their own in 2014.

Nintendo is officially joining the big boys' club, as various Wii U games were confirmed to retail at $60 apiece with most retailers. That's a 10-dollar price jump from most high-profile Wii titles.

Nintendo is officially joining the big boys’ club, as various Wii U games were confirmed to retail at $60 apiece with most retailers. That’s a 10-dollar price jump from most high-profile Wii titles.

In a sense, it’s both a disappointment and an interesting change of the guard, as Nintendo games have traditionally been less expensive than Xbox and PlayStation titles.

Interestingly, the price increase can be attributed to a number of things: the shrinking console market, a more advanced system, more competition from the mobile market, and probably the fluctuating economy.

Producing physical retail discs isn’t a cheap effort, either, especially with shipping, retail, and production taking so many pieces of the pie from Nintendo in the long run.

Digital distribution would help with that, but as New Super Mario Bros. 2 has shown, it’s not a sales magnet yet.

Regardless, Nintendo games are now “expensive” by loose retail standards. Hopefully, this isn’t a precursor to PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 games getting a 10-dollar price bump of their own in 2014.